Earlier this year mindyourmind was selected as one of the partners for the federal government’s Canada Service Corps initiative alongside 4H Canada, Apathy is Boring, Boys & Girls Club of Canada, Canadian Wildlife Federation, Chantiers jeunesse, Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award, Katimavik, OceanWise and YMCA. We will be going to five different communities in Canada to co-create mental health resources with youth, and what we create will be customized to each city. Our first community was Squamish, British Columbia.
If you want to know more check out last months update.
August was a very exciting month! We were invited to attend the #LeadersToday International Youth Summit on August 27th and 28th. It was a great opportunity to reconnect with the other coalition partners and meet some of the Canada Service Corps alumni. We were fortunate enough to bring one of our Squamish alumni, McKinley! The purpose of the summit was to reflect on what has worked well and what needs to be improved upon when the official program rolls out sometime next year, there were many fruitful discussions. We focused a lot on the barriers youth might experience when wanting to get involved; such as finances, mental health and cultural barriers. We also discussed reconciliation, decolonization and how to create culturally welcoming programming. Additionally there were a few international representatives present who were able to share best practices with us. We learned so much and are looking forward to integrating this knowledge into our work.
Our Squamish cohort has made some impressive progress. The group has set a date for the health fair at the local high school, it will be on October 10th. We are still in talks with the staff at the other school. The group has been invited to speak at the school board meeting on September 12th. Finally the group is working on finalizing a grant in order to secure funds for the health fair.
The mindyourmind team has completed the MIND game which is a mental health trivia game designed to reflect the Squamish community. The youth are testing it at the moment. We continue to support the Squamish team as they enter the final few months of the project. Stay tuned for more exciting updates!